Hardship taking toll on people next door

The Found Wanting report looked at the lives of people in Dundee and Fife over the course of a year.

One of the women interviewed, identified as Alison from Dundee, told researchers: “I felt suicidal more times than I had hot dinners, and that’s no joke.”

Food insecurity can range from worrying about running out of money for food, which is seen a mild form of the problem, through to skipping meals or cutting back on food, to more severe cases where people can go for days without eating.

Another interviewee, Philip from Dundee, told researchers: “I went three days without food and I literally was close to collapsing in the street.”

The report was backed by local charity workers.

Rizwan Rafik, from Dundee’s Taught by Muhammad outreach programme, said: “I have seen people who haven’t eaten for days and I think if someone is feeling hardship or crisis that will definitely affect their mental health.

“I have seen the relief on people’s faces when they receive a food parcel.

“When people have to go through that constant worry and stress, having to think about finding another job or signing up to benefits, you see a change in people.

“It’s how they respond to things. They used to have a laugh and a joke when you saw them. Then it just gets too much for them.”

Norman Brown, manager of Angus Foodbank, which distributes parcels in Forfar, Arbroath and Montrose, said at least two clients a month tell staff they are going hungry in order to feed their children.

He said the number of food parcels – with enough for three days – distributed in Angus had grown 15% in the last year – up from just over 1,900 between April to September in 2018 to 2,200 over the same period this year.

He said it was unusual for people to be totally overcome with hunger, but many show the tell-tale signs of want.

He said: “There are people who are coming in hungry but it tends not to be extreme, certainly in my experience in Angus.

“When people come in to us one of the things they get is a cup of tea and a biscuit or a cake. You can see by the way the way they munch their way through half a packet of biscuits in half an hour that there is hunger going on.”

He said the foodbank staff were bracing themselves for an increase in referrals during the upcoming holiday period.